Githyanki 405th fleet
The Githyanki 405th fleet was a raiding fleet of the Githyanki empire. Consisting of 4 ships, lightly armored and equipped with minimal siege equipment this fleet was meant for light to moderate levels of raiding. They would use their Dreadnought as a mother ship to store loot while the three smaller ships would do the actual raiding of the prime material plane. This fleet was capable of raiding for several consecutive months or even years without having the return to the heart of their empire to drop off their haul. Makeup of the Fleet The fleet usually consisted of four ships and one dragon. Dreadnought The Dreadnought was the largest of the ships by far. Capable of transporting a thousand warriors, its usual compliment was roughly 200. This ship was commanded by Supreme Commander Sirruth and would serve as the mother ship for the others to drop off their loot in and swap out any wounded soldiers. It had 6 mortars and 16 mana canons. The dreadnought possessed a gravity well, an atmospheric modifier, and an anti-magic shell. Galleon The Galleon was the right arm of the fleet. Equipped with 12 Mortars and 8 mana canons this ship was capable of leveling a small city if it so chose. This ship was capable of transporting over 250 troops but its usual compliment was 50. This ship was commanded by Kithrak Elridan.The Galleon also possessed a gravity well and an atmospheric modifier. Cruiser The Cruiser was the most versatile ship and the fastest. With two upper decks, one on the top and one on the bottom the ship could fire in 360 degrees with its 6 mana canons and 8 mortars. This ship was commanded by Honored Sarth Ja'adoc. It was capable of transporting 100 soldiers, but carried a compliment of 30. The cruiser also had a gravity well and an atmospheric modifier. Clipper The clipper was the smallest and weakest ship. 4 mana canons and no mortars, this ship could transport 60 troops but was crewed by 25. This ship was commanded by Knight Dozra. The Clipper had a gravity shell and an atmospheric modifier added shortly before the flouna conflict. Pyroclastic Dragon Supreme commander Sirruth owned a pyroclastic dragon she had captured as a wyrmling in Gehenna that she controlled with a magic collar she locked around its neck. It had only matured to around 70 years of age when it died. Commanders Supreme Commander Sirruth Supreme Commander Sirruth had lead a stellar raiding career throughout her long life. Not every raid she went on was a success but her defensive battle strategies usually played to her advantage. She was completely loyal to Vlaakith, leader of the Githyanki empire, and every action she took was in Vlaakith's name. Unlike many other commanders though, her patient strategies put her on the prime material plan significantly more than most githyanki in her position. This lead her to slowly age into what by human standards, would be considered their late forties. She began to fear old age, but also find it fascinating. Kith'Rak Elridan Elridan was the most cruel of the Githyanki commanders. Like all Githyanki he saw other species as lower than himself, but he was not afraid to show it. He was wildly abusive to those whom he defeated and treated them like they were less than animals. He ran a strict ship, always pushing his crew unnecessarily hard because he could. He lived for battle and cruelty. He never outwardly showed enthusiasm, but victory in battle was the only thing that brought him some semblance of satisfaction in his life. Gish Jen'Ling Jen'Ling was fascinated by necromancy: The ability to turn what was once your enemy into your willing puppet. Preferring the abilities of arcana to her peoples innate psionics, she was fairly powerful and immensely well researched on item crafting. She could have risen higher in the ranks of the Githyanki empire were she more obedient. She had a tendency to disobey orders if she thought it would better suit her research. This inevitably lead to her downfall and death. Honored Sarth Ja'adoc Ja'adoc lived for battle. Violence was the spice that made life worth living to him. To battle a foe, and be pushed to his limits filled him with glee. His combat abilities got him command of a ship, but he usually left it to one of his sarths to pilot, he wanted to be on the ground, fighting hand to hand. He thought every risk was worth taking. He would always go for the strongest looking opponent and enjoy subduing them. He would never take prisoners or slaves though; to be imprisoned and robbed of their freedom was an insult he would not even place on his enemies. He was particularly afraid of these strong feelings mortals call "hunger" and "thirst" they were unbearable and terrifying feelings to him. Knight Dozra Dozra was competitive. Of all the other commanders she was by far the youngest and had risen through the ranks the fastest. She always wanted to do more with less, and by that, she would try to raid larger and larger settlements with fewer and fewer troops, just to prove she could. This lead to her downfall when she attacked Alfenheim a second time with the same type of ship and troop quality after being repelled the first time. To her it was a challenge to get it right the second time. In reality it was her undoing. Knight Pah'Zel Pah'Zel did not usually ride with this fleet. She was a dragonrider knight usually assigned to guard the Gityhanki capital of Tu'narath. But after the 405th's Clipper was moderately damaged in a battle with a small prime material settlement she and her mount, Gunacrin the Dogged, were assigned to join the fleet and raze the settlement to the ground for its slight on their empire. On the way though she was persuaded to escort the larger ships as Dozra didn't want her help in getting revenge. Pah'Zel rarely left the capital and was always bored there. She came to the material plane ready to be entertained by these weak mortals. She seriously considered keeping Ojos, the leader of the munchkin Tabaxi, as a pet. She, of all githyanki, underestimated the mortal races the most. She had a dragon under her command and had a hundred years of combat training. No mortal could ever touch her. And why would they? The Githyanki keep the Illithid in check. The mortal races should be paying tribute to her empire freely. The fact that the githyanki have to fight and raid to take what's theirs by right, was absurd to her. Gunacrin the Dogged Gunacrin the Dogged was a red dragon on the verge of adulthood. In the githyanki empire, it is tradition for a dragon to serve with them from its adolescent years to its adulthood. This gets a lot of use out of them as while they aren't raiding they don't age on the astral plane. Gunacrin was nearing his adulthood when he was taken off raiding and kept at Tu'narath on a defensive role. This angered him as he felt he was being kept past his contract this way. He was fed up with his service to the githyanki empire. When he was sent raiding again he planned to stay on the mortal plane as long as possible to complete his contract. The way the tabaxi feared and revered him was refreshing after being around the arrogance of the githyanki for so long. Gunnacrin highly considered trying to desert the githyanki and to rule these tabaxi on his own if he could. He never got the chance. Flouna Conflict The 405th raiding fleet was moving between existing portals to the prime material plane when they received a psionic navigational distress call from another githyanki ship on the prime material plane. As with any distress call a small navigational rift was opened to allow them to find the exact location of the ship in distress. Not wanting to fall behind schedule Supreme commander Sirruth sent the Clipper to assist the distressed ship and took the rest of the fleet to their next destination. The Clipper made its way through the rift, to find the distress beacon had been destroyed, presumably along with the ship that had sent it. With no indication of what may have happened, Dozra made the decision to attack and raid the nearest settlement, to make a statement and a small profit. Not long after the ship began its first pass over the city it came under fire from a small wizard, blasting them with fireballs. Dozra fired on the little man and sent warriors to dispatch him. The warriors died quickly after chasing him out of view. A dragonborn and a human climbed into the ship, but Dozra's knights fended them off. The Clipper met little resistance after this, but the fire on their ship was out of control and Dozra made the decision to retreat, leaving a back door rift in the center of this small settlement so she could come back and take revenge. The Return After joining up with the rest of the fleet the clipper was towed back to the nearest outpost. normally Dozra would have been criticized for losing by the other commanders, but this settlement had apparently destroyed another githyanki ship, so she was spared the lectures. They took their haul back to the capital and came back with some reinforcement in the form of a dragon rider knight. In the meantime the clipper was repaired at the outpost and outfitted with fire control that would allow the pilot to douse any fires on the deck.This process took several months. The fleet returned to the Rift and sent scouts through using their plane shifting ability to scout the area. They reported very few defences in the settlements and even fewer resources. Except a mountain settlement made of ice, and shaped like a lion's head. They had considerable loot waiting to be taken. Gish Jen'Ling made a consumable rift ripper for the scouts to open a rift directly on the lion's head mountain. The rift knocked the lion mountain's ear off when it opened, but the catlike inhabitants were none the wiser. The fleet would be divided in two parties. The Clipper and the Cruiser would burn the original settlement and the Galleon and Dragon would begin to raid the Lion mountain. Once the small settlement was burned the fleet would meet up at the lion mountain and complete the raid. Things went south almost immediately as the knight scouts sent to kill the small wizard before the ship's arrival were thwarted and killed, Instead of preemptively eliminating the largest threat, they telegraphed the time of the raid. The moment the Clipper opened and came through the rift it was blasted with fireballs that set the deck on fire. The Cruiser pulled back and watched as the Clipper flew directly into a waiting ambush. The clipper's crew and captain, Knight, Dozra were slaughtered by the settlement's defenders and the ship was commandeered by 4 of the settlement's defenders. Only 3 of the Clipper's crew successfully escaped to the Cruiser. Honored Sarth Ja'adoc wanted to take the Cruiser in to join the fray but Supreme Commander Sirruth ordered him to hold back and just send his men to retrieve the Clipper's engine parts and join the Galleon. The Galleon met less resistance at first. Their raid on the lion mountain was going well until a canon hidden in the lion's eye blasted a hole clean through the ship. The deck was damaged but all vital engine parts were missed. The perpetrator, a bird man began to flee on a mechanical bird, but Knight Pah'Zel was too quick. She and Gunnacrin swooped in and knocked him out of the sky in a single blast. From there subduing the inhabitants of the peak was fairly easy. But the Clipper was in enemy hands now. The dreadnought took pursuit as the clipper began to run away, deeper into the astral plane and though the Dreadnought was slowly catching up, it would take too long. Commander Sirruth took her pyroclastic dragon and destroyed the clipper, retrieving the final, and most important throne part of the engine. But her dragon was killed in the process. She retrieved the collar the used to control it and warped back to the dreadnought and turned it around leaving the hijackers adrift in the astral sea. She had bigger fish to fry on the mountain. On the Defense While they were raiding the lion mountain a psychic voice called out to Kith'Rak Elrdian. It identified itself as an atropal and it said it would serve the githyanki by providing them infinite undead soldiers if they could free it. Kithrank' Elridan felt the creature's power and agreed. He commanded his forces to take the icy lion castle rather than simply raid it. This sparked more fighting from the previously subdued inhabitants, but they were quickly dealt with. Gish Jen'Ling set up undead sentries around the mountain to make sure no reinforcements could come while they began to try to track down the Atopal's location. Knight Pah'Zel and Gunnacrin the Dogged had fun tormenting the local and furry inhabitants like children with new pets, while Elridan, Ja'adoc and Jen'Ling focused on the real mission. The Galleon picked up the remains of the flying metal bird they had shot down and waited to put them on the dreadnought. Jen'Ling's undead sentries spotted a small group heading up the mountain early the next morning. Two little people were among them and one of them matched the description Dozra had given of the wizard. Jen'Ling, not interested in fighting a wizard who had twice defeated their clipper, tried to negotiation through the mouths of her undead. But the mortals were not interested in negotiation, killing the sentries instead. Jen'Ling sent a few of her men with a consumable fireball spell to give the wizard a taste of his own medicine. The second assault was more successful, damaging the mortals as they rested in a cave, but her men were killed. Ja'adoc heard worthy opponents were on the mountain and without Sirruth to stop him, hopped on the Cruiser and chased the mortals all the way down the mountain and into the woods where he lost them. With the adrenaline still flowing through his veins Ja'adoc took to searching the castle for hiding survivors. Elridan questioned the few survivors they had managed to capture to learn the Atropal had been causing nightmares tied to a dendritic crystal vein underground. Ja'adoc found a hidden room in the throne room and excitedly opened it, without calling for backup. Inside was a significant fighting force of cat people who made a run for the exit. Gunacrin and Pah'Zel joined him in cutting down as many as they could as the cat people ran for safety. One tabaxi with spear and shield, clearly one of their leaders, wounded Ja'adoc before attempting to run himself, but he was cut off by Elridan and fought valiantly, but ultimately fell to Elridan's might. Pah'Zel and the soldiers under her command chased the fleeing cat people, but she was cut off by a black dragonborn leading more tabaxi fighters. The two of them fought and the battle could have gone either way, but more githyanki began to arrive and the dragonborn and his men retreated. The githyanki continued to gather information for a few hours as they waited for the Dreadnought to arrive. Jen'Ling made use of this time and began to study the cat people's history, learning they had been ruled by a silver dragon once, and more importantly they considered dragons to be gods. A different Approach goes wrong Eventually that night the dreadnought arrived and Supreme Commander Sirruth realized she had underestimated the raw strength of the mortals. She decided to use a different approach. The cat people clearly feared and revered Gunacrin as he was a dragon. She decided to use the cat people to her advantage. A map in the castle showed that the cat poeple outnumbered the humans 4 to one, and where all their settlements were. The cat people, now they knew were called Tabaxi, were clearly allies of the humans. Sirruth told Pah'Zel and Gunnacrin to get the tabaxi on their side by claiming to be a new god here to rule them. They would use these tabaxi as hostages, soldiers and bargaining chips against the wizard and his human forces. They would force them to negotiate for a ceasefire so they could find the atropal. Gunacrin and Pah'Zel liked the idea of pretending to be gods and set out immediately. However, they only got two villages scared out of their minds and bending the knee to them when they ran into the wizard's forces. The wizard and his consort flew up to meet them after some pathetic attempts to magically ground them. Pah'Zel negotiated with the surprisingly childish wizard for a ceasefire. She psionically transmitted the entire conversation to the other githyanki leaders as it happened. But just after the wizard agreed to the ceasefire and gunacrin began to fly off, the wizard and his consort betrayed them and using magic confused and knocked Pah'Zel and Gunacrin out of the air. On the ground they were overwhelmed by the rest of the wizard's forces and killed. All out War It was now clear the mortals could not be trusted to adhere to a ceasefire. Sirruth came up with a new plan. She would use the mortal's swift aggression against them. She ordered her ships to set the small city around the lion's head mountain ablaze. She then ordered the Galleon and the Cruiser to attack the two next largest cities on the tabaxi map, using a defensive strategy. Raiding was no longer of any importance, just to get the wizard's attention away from the Dreadnought. It would go to the ethereal plane and fly underground along the dendritic crystal vein to find the atropal. One of the mortals, named Daisy contacted Sirruth via Pah'Zel's circlet of conveyance. The two made threats against each other for a while, just so Sirruth could make them even more angry before she cut the connection off. The three ships separated and headed to their respective targets. Ja'adoc, now recovered from his wound and wanting to fight a worthy opponent again took the cruiser and attacked the original settlement figuring there would be a worthy fight there. Elridan and Jen'ling took the Galleon and attacked the nearby mountain city of the aaracocra. Sirruth took the dreadnought and began to follow the dendritic crystal vein. She also picked up Gunacrin's body on the way to resurrect as a zombie later. The first attack on the aaracocra city was a slaughter in the Githyanki fleet's favor. They raided explosive powder and harvested as many bodies as Jen'Ling could control before pulling back to fight defensively per Sirruth's orders. They used their atmospheric controls to change the atmosphere inside their ship's bubble to match the clouds and sat at the cloud line to wait and see if the wizard would come to this city's aid. Meanwhile Ja'adoc attacked the original settlement and found nearly no resistance. He was disappointed at first until the flying castle over the bay began to move. He took the controls himself and the flying castle and the Cruiser began a sort of dogfight with the castle trying to ram his ship. He lost one of his two masts and one of his poop decks before he managed to get above the castle. The two soared up, higher and higher into the sky as he and his mortars blasted the flying castle. Two combatants from the inside of the castle flew onto his ship. His men cut one of them down and the remaining one retreated. Now it was his turn. He sent a small party of his men to raid the inside of the castle. At this point the castle began to fly diagonally down toward the ocean. His first party did not come back so he sent another. This time the party reported back that the castle had been abandoned. Shortly after it switched from a diagonal to a downward plummet and the castle fell into the ocean. Ja'adoc had forced the defenders to flee and knocked the flying castle from the sky. If that didn't catch the wizard's attention nothing would. He sat a good distance from the settlement, over the sea to wait for retribution. Retribution Retribution came for Elridan and Jen'Ling first. Elridan was contacted on his circled of Conveyance by Daisy again. She threatened him, but he managed to get her to let slip that she knew he had stolen spark powder from the mountain city. That meant the wizard had come to this city. Elridan began his attack on the city again, this time from half a mile above it, to force the wizard to come to him. Jen'Ling had her zombie bird people from the city on standby to encircle and trap the wizard once he arrived. The bird people counterattacked this time and made life difficult on the bridge for Jen'Ling who Elridan ordered to stay on the bridge herself. Eventually the wizard and a small portion of his entourage did arrive. But when they saw how outmatched they were they fled, using a darkness spell they managed to avoid the Galleon's mortars as they fled back into the city. Elridan felt he had nothing to lose and if the wizard would not die to defend this city, he would watch this city die instead. Elridan continued his bombardment of the city, but the city's smog output began to increase, likely to give cover to their incursion teams. Elridan moved his ship to the east side of the city to continue his assault. Then, out of nowhere, a canon hit the deck of their ship and bounced off pathetically. Then a second came right at Elridan himself. In the instant he had to react he plane shifted as the canon shell crashed right through the ship's control throne. The entire ship began to fall from the sky. The knights grabbed as many men as they could before plane shifting out to avoid falling to their death as the galleon fell. Without a throne the Galleon's self destruct would initiate on its own. Elridan had no choice but to tell his remaining men to regroup at the dreadnought. When Sirruth learned that more than one of these canons capable of punching through their ships existed she ordered Ja'adoc to fall back into the cave city she had discovered was the location of the atropal in the underdark. Ja'adoc had been sending small undead raiding parties into the human settlement to remind them of his presence. Ja'adoc was about to turn his ship ethereal to join the Dreadnought when a sudden ocean tornado formed around his ship within seconds. The tornado grabbed his vessel and tossed it violently into the water, where they slid to a stop at the beach. Ja'adoc knew this was going to be a good fight. He ordered a small group of his men to disable the ship, and take the engine parts to the dreadnought via plane shift while he and his men would fight the wizard's men hand to hand outside. They would keep the wizard and his men busy long enough for the ship to self destruct. He and his men would plane shift out just before that happened, leaving the wizard's entourage to die in the explosion. It did not turn out that way though. Ja'adoc for the first time in his life was completely overpowered by the melee prowess of a human and a shark man and he perished on the battlefield along with the rest of his men. Underdark Last stand The survivors of the last two ship's destruction made it to the underground city. The dreadnought collapsed all known entrances to the city before it began to free the atropal from a massive prison of dendritic crystal it was stuck in. Elridan worked on disabling old giant glyphs intended to reinforce the prison. Jen'Ling got to work creating undead beacon controllers to utilize the ghouls of the city as their own soldiers. She then used her magic to bring back Gunacrin as a zombie to guard her undead beacons. Sirruth learned the Atropal had been imprisoned by a beholder who had sought to use its power, only to be killed by it. She began to suspect the same fate might wait for her, but the possibility to bringing a god fetus to Vlaakith was too good an opportunity to pass up. It didn't take long before the Wizard's forces arrived. They sabotaged Elridan's operation of disabling the explosive giant glyphs and managed to damage his squad. Full of hatred and rage Elridan charged the wizard, sure he was strong enough to prevail. To his credit he downed many of the Wizard's companions, but they wiped out his squad, blinded him, disarmed him and he ended up being stabbed to death by a mortal fifty times weaker than himself as he tried to run. It was a dishonorable and embarrassing death for a Kith'Rak. The mortals escaped again. They began to use the circlets of conveyance to try to learn information from the Githyanki. Sirruth made the decision to go dark and stop using the circlets to boost their psionic range to keep the mortals form learning their plans. Jen'Ling needed to learn how the sword that originally imprisoned the Atropal worked, and Sirruth used the dreadnought to continually pound the Atropal's prison. She was close, and if she left now the mortals would surely take the atropal for themselves. The mortals returned, this time with a small army of tabaxi on their side. The battle raged for almost and hour. Jen'Ling did not return to the dreadnought, as she was ambushed and her squad was burned to death and smote with holy magic by the wizard's men. It was just the dreadnought now. Sirruth had her men place explosive charges in the ceiling of the cavern and intended to activate the ship's gravity well to pin the intruders on the deck once they attacked so they could be buried in falling rock, then surrounded and slaughtered. The plan started to work until one of the mortals showed psychic ability and imitated her commands to disable the gravity well. In one last stand Sirruth fought to the last, but as her ship began to self destruct she finally ran, only to be cut down by the black dragonborn. A few of her men managed to plane shift out of the battle back to the astral sea. They returned to the capital in shame. A small scouting vessel was sent to the area after a few weeks to see if the rifts were still open. They had been closed and Sirruth's head floated in the Astral sea. Her jaw and eyes had been removed and a note was nailed through her forehead that read "Never return." The mortals had clearly survived dealing with the atropal, meaning it was probably dead or free now. With no easy way to navigate back to the part of the mortal world that had slighted them, and no loot to be gained from the effort, the githyanki empire elected not to spend the resources required to retaliate.